Moira McNairnay Counselling

26/09/2025

Sure, you can always try harder. You can always seek to fix, improve, or excel. But where your pursuit of change is coming from matters.

When change is driven by efforting—by digging in and just trying harder to fix yourself—it rarely brings the transformation you’re longing for.

Paradoxically, it’s often when we stop trying to fix ourselves and instead begin watching ourselves, connecting with who we are at our core, that real change starts to unfold.

Please be kind to yourself today. 💙

19/09/2025

“Stillness is not the absence of movement, but the presence of awareness.” – JHL

Can you find a moment to practice stillness today? What do you notice?

19/09/2025

15/09/2025

If you grew up in an environment where saying “no” led to rejection, conflict, or shame, it makes sense that boundaries might feel scary—or even harmful.

But boundaries are a fundamental part of healthy relating. They’re not walls to keep others out. They’re bridges that help you show up more authentically, with clarity and self-respect.

You’re not too much. You’re not being mean.
You’re honoring what helps you stay connected—to yourself and others.

11/09/2025

06/09/2025

https://www.facebook.com/share/163E4aYihp/?mibextid=wwXIfr

30/06/2025

Anyone else identify with Autonomy dynamics?

🔓 Autonomy Survival Style
The Autonomy Survival Style forms when a child’s early expressions of independence are met with control, intrusion, or punishment.

When caregivers are enmeshed or overpowering, children often learn to suppress their natural boundaries in order to stay connected. Over time, this can lead to patterns of defiance, shutdown, or inner conflict when it comes to making choices.

As adults, this can show up as:
🌀 Feeling constantly burdened
🌀 Having great difficulty setting limits or saying no when needed
🌀 Pressuring oneself to always be "nice"

In NARM, we support clients in reconnecting with their natural boundaries—not as a way to reject others, but to come into deeper alignment with themselves. It's not about pushing people away, but about having the internal space to make choices from a place of freedom, not pressure.

26/06/2025

Feeling into this ….❤️

17/06/2025

Q: "My triggers are so intense that they feel like I'm dying. How do I even attune to this?"

A: When a trigger feels like you’re dying, it is the body’s way of saying: "This is too much. I don’t feel safe." It’s a sign of low somatic capacity, limited perspective, and an overwhelmed nervous system.

The first layer of attunement isn’t about changing the trigger. In the short term, attunement doesn’t have to mean doing something big. In fact, trying to “attune” while fully activated can add pressure.

Instead, stay simple: step away if you need to. Ask for support if available. Whisper to your body, “This is a lot right now.” Even three seconds of honest acknowledgement is enough.

The long-term support is what truly transforms things. Triggers soften as you develop two key capacities:

Somatic capacity — the ability to safely feel more without the survival taking over fully.
Clarity of perception — the ability to see the present moment without being overtaken by old stories

Here’s where to begin:

1. Start small. Your system is already carrying a lot. Don't make attunement another task. Focus on relieving internal pressure, simplifying priorities, witnessing the mind's stories and tending to your energetic boundaries.

2. Meet your body’s real-time needs. Physical needs are often more accessible than emotional ones at first. Pause, drink water when your body is thirsty. Acknowledge what your body needs physically, even if you can’t meet it perfectly. That recognition is an act of attunement.

3. Explore your body outside of triggers. Begin feeling your body in neutral moments. This builds a deeper relationship with your felt sense — so when a trigger does come, your body has more capacity.

4. Coregulation, if accessible and supportive, can help.

If you want guided support to begin this journey, explore my Self Attunement Audio Toolkit — a collection of gently guided audio experiences designed to help your system build sustainable capacity for triggers, life and relationships.

Comment 'Attuned" or visit my profile to download the toolkit.

Love,
Ally.

11/06/2025

Yes, sometimes anxiety is communicating something important to pay attention to!

Anxiety makes sense when the world doesn’t appear to have any.

The more toxic the environment, the louder the alarm bells of anxiety will ring.

Of course, it’s not the only cause, but it’s something to consider before immediately blaming yourself as the source.

I’ve worked with way too many people who think they’re broken, when, in fact, their biology was responding perfectly to the situation they were in.

Ultimately, these physical sensations are signals of activation that should be explored & understood before trying to suppress them because we think we’re the disordered one.

The nervous system always has a reason for showing up the way it does.

➡️Follow for more

04/06/2025

27/05/2025

❤️💔

Some say that if only we had a positive attitude, if only we approached our circumstances in an upbeat way, we would feel no emotional pain.

I challenge this. It’s inevitable that by simply living a life, being a human being, we will encounter times of adversity. It’s not because of our attitude that a pandemic or 9/11 or a financial crisis or a marriage or a long friendship ending are oppressive or heartbreaking. Some things just hurt. I have found this basic truth liberating.

In the teachings and practices I studied, there was no attempt to belittle my pain or rationalize it, and no one was reassuring me that things would surely get better soon or reminding me to only look at the bright side—all things we are conditioned to say and believe in the face of suffering. For the first time, I felt permission and freedom to feel whatever I was going to feel. I wasn’t doing it wrong, and neither are you.

Of course, we don’t want to let our suffering, and the suffering intrinsic to being a human being, define and overtake us either. Therein lies our work. So how do we do it?

For a start, it helps to recognize that for many of us, a dominant cultural attitude toward pain is that it’s something to be avoided, denied, “treated.” As a result, it can be particularly tough for people—including me—to acknowledge painful emotions. Simply recognizing and accepting suffering is a huge first step.

Second, remember that this truth, that some things just hurt, is universal. That means that no matter what, we are not alone.

When I’m in some kind of pain, I’ve found that one of the worst components of what I experience is feeling that I’m all alone with my pain, my nose pressed up against the window, looking into the space where everyone else has gathered, to enjoy themselves together or comfort one another. It’s the worst and most habitual “add-on” to suffering that I experience.

But it is not actually true that we’re excluded, uniquely cast out because of the pain. Everyone hurts at times. Try reaching out to someone, or allowing someone to reach out to you. Take one small step to allow whatever helping hands are coming toward you to find you.